Category Archives: Random Things of Randomness

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical version of The Phantom of the Opera is one of the best known, but it’s hardly the only version in existence. Before Webber’s version we had the Ken Hill version, which supposedly inspired Webber to make his (although the two are very different). I’ve heard clips, and honestly I haven’t been overly impressed. But there was one really good song I wanted to share here, “While Floating High Above”. It has the bonus of being performed by John Owen-Jones, who was one of my favorite Phantoms in the Webber musical. To me this just proves that no matter the composer, he is the Phantom.

I have so many mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, yay, it’s a biopic on Tolkien! On the other hand, I have been burned by Hollywood ruining potentially good projects too many times to fully trust this. I want to be more excited; I’m just so afraid they’ll end up ruining it!

I know I share this video every year for Valentine’s Day, but it’s something I think needs to be shared every year. All around us, people are in bad relationships and think it’s perfectly normal and acceptable. It’s good to be reminded of what a relationship should really be like.

“It’s giving life that counts. Until you’re ready for it, all the rest is just a big fraud. All the crazy haircuts in the world won’t keep it turning. Life isn’t a love in; it’s the dishes and the orthodontist and the shoe repairman and ground round instead of roast beef. And I’ll tell you something else–it isn’t going to bed with a man that proves you’re in love with him; it’s getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful everyday world with him that counts.”

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have finished writing the scripts for a new Dracula adaptation, and they hope to begin filming it soon. In ordinary circumstances, I would be dreadfully concerned about a Dracula TV show, but this is Moffat and Gatiss. They did well with Sherlock–much better than I had expected, anyway–so I hope they continue to do well with Dracula. An interesting note is that they will not be modernizing Dracula like they did with Sherlock; the story will take place in its original time period.

I do greatly miss Sherlock, but I hope that this new Dracula project more than makes up for its absence…even if it only has three episodes again.

When I first reviewed The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, I expressed disappointed that there were no scenes of Thorin’s funeral or Dain’s coronation, and I hoped they would be included in the extended edition. Well, after finally watching the extended edition, I am pleased to report that those scenes did actually appear.

Here we are in another year! I feel like I’ve been a bit out of the loop in terms of things to look forward to this year, but at least we know Star Wars: Episode IX will be coming out, and hopefully it will be better than The Last Jedi. But by not having anything in particular to look forward do, that’s actually less pressure on me; I can just kind of amble through the year and take things as they come.

Well, faithful readers, we have come to the end of another year together. My year definitely had ups and downs, but I did get my picture taken with Peter Capaldi back in March, and that was basically the greatest thing ever, so you will never be able to convince me that 2018 was a terrible year.

There is one important thing to remember going into 2019, and that is the lesson of Christmas. When hope was lost, Christ was born, and His birth was the fulfillment of a promise. It was His way of saying, “I know you have been hurt; I know you have been lost; I know how greatly you have suffered. But I am here now, and I make all things new.” His birth was the beginning of Creation’s renewal, a renewal that would be completed at Easter when He conquered death by rising from the dead. And as we celebrate this feast every year, it serves as a reminder that when the world wasn’t looking, its Salvation was born.